OUR CONGREGATION OF KINDNESS
Learn more about Our Congregation of Kindness – coming soon
We’d love to hear how you’re contributing to kindness in this world. Get in touch below and we may post here.
International Day of Non-Violence 2026
By Olwyn Goulding, Bill Crews International (BCI)
On the International Day of Non-Violence, we recognise that violence leaves a lifelong impact on individuals, families and communities around the world. Through his work in Australia, Bill has long witnessed the devastating effects of violence, and he recognises that these challenges extend far beyond borders.
This recognition led Bill to establish Bill Crews International (BCI) in 2024, with a mission to support conflict-affected communities to break cycles of violence and build safer, more hopeful futures.
Since its inception, BCI has partnered with local organisations in Gaza, Yemen and Lebanon, while maintaining a strong commitment to grassroots-led solutions in Sudan and South Sudan.
Through BCI’s flagship partnership with Your Aid for Health South Sudan (YAH), a transformative community-driven initiative is now underway to combat violence against women and girls in rural South Sudan.
Using the globally recognised SASA! methodology, YAH has begun their journey to support communities to address the social norms and power inequalities that contribute to violence, while building local expertise to create lasting change from within.
Over the next three years, this pioneering program aims to reach 30,000 people – helping women and girls live safer lives and strengthening communities’ ability to prevent violence for generations to come.
🔗 Learn more:
Raising Voices — SASA! Together
YOUR AID FOR HEALTH – Link
BCI – Link
Meeting people where they are with Cecily & Duncan Morten
By Cecily and Duncan Morten
5 September 2026
For almost 12 months now, we have been supporting people experiencing homelessness across the inner city. Much of this work has been funded from our own pockets, along with generous donations from a handful of kind and compassionate people.
We visit parks and train stations, walk the streets, and speak with people wherever we find them. Sadly, we continue to see an ever-growing need.
We give whatever we can—whether it’s food, toiletries, warm clothing, or simply our time. We talk. We listen. We ask what people need, and we do our best to support them.
Our approach is personal and individual. We believe in treating every person with respect, dignity and compassion, recognising that everyone’s circumstances are different and that there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
At the heart of what we do is a simple belief: we are all just one life-changing incident away from finding ourselves in a similar situation.
We are now working towards our long-term goal of establishing a charity—one built on the belief that we should always do and give whatever we can. A charity committed to meeting people where they are, offering support without judgement, and doing our utmost to bring warmth, hope and light to those who need it most.
This contribution was submitted via the Congregation of Kindness.
If you have a big idea or a story to tell about how you’re contributing kindness in this world, we’d love to read it.
Submit your contribution here.
Nepal floods: “the fear is real and it’s just tough”
Rev. Bill crews spoke to ‘his man on the ground’, Nelson Scott, about the real stories unfolding in the wake of devastating floods in Nepal.
A hospital becomes a meeting place for those with missing friends and family, the uncertainty hanging in the air, and a country coming together to support their own.
Listen to the 2GB radio interview below.
Nelson Scott on the ground in Nepal, at the foot of the Himalayas.
World Humanitarian Day: Empowering Local Communities
By Akelo Michael
19 August 2026
Today we honour the humanitarian workers who continue to stand alongside communities facing conflict, displacement and crisis. This year’s World Humanitarian Day theme, Strengthening Global Solidarity and Empowering Local Communities, reminds us that effective humanitarian action begins with people closest to the challenges, responding to the needs of their own communities.
At Bill Crews International, we are privileged to work alongside local sister organisations whose staff and volunteers continue to serve others, often in incredibly difficult circumstances. Their leadership, resilience and commitment are what make lasting change possible.
One of those people is Laura Htway, Program Manager at our sister organisation PlayOnside, which works alongside migrant and refugee communities on the Thailand–Myanmar border.
Standing alongside communities
In and around Mae Sot, communities affected by conflict and displacement continue to face challenges including access to education, protection, livelihoods and psychosocial wellbeing. PlayOnside uses the transformative power of sport to create safe spaces where young people can connect, build resilience and develop a sense of belonging.
Humanitarian work extends beyond responding to immediate emergencies. It is also about dignity, stability and creating opportunities for people to shape their own futures.
From refugee to humanitarian leader
Laura’s connection to this work is personal. She left Myanmar in 2008 and arrived in a refugee camp when she was ten years old. At 19, she began assisting female coaches at PlayOnside. She eventually became the organisation’s first female coach and has since progressed into program management. Her journey reflects the importance of locally led humanitarian action. People closest to a crisis are not simply recipients of support; they can become the people leading the response.
Through PlayOnside, young people are given opportunities to develop leadership, while girls are encouraged to participate and lead. As Laura puts it, “Coaching isn’t just about skills, but leadership”.
The power of partnership
Through the support of Bill Crews International, PlayOnside is able to continue delivering programs for communities along the Thailand–Myanmar border. As Laura explained, “We cannot do those things if we don’t have the support from you guys.”
BCF’s support allows locally led organisations to continue the work they know their communities need: creating safe spaces, strengthening resilience and giving young people opportunities to participate and lead.
What does humanitarian action look like?
Humanitarian action can look different from what we sometimes imagine. It can look like a safe space where a young person can play, connect and feel that they belong. It can look like a girl seeing a woman in a leadership role and recognising that she can lead too. It can look like a child who arrived in a refugee camp becoming a humanitarian leader herself.
During our discussion with Laura, she mentioned the importance of the programs for young girls, saying “[it’s] so important to have women in organisations because (it gives) the girls someone to look up to…. it will encourage them to imagine a future with hope”.
This World Humanitarian Day, we thank Laura, the PlayOnside team and humanitarian workers everywhere whose dedication makes an extraordinary difference in the lives of others. Humanitarian action is ultimately about people — protecting dignity, supporting hope and walking alongside communities when they need it most.
This contribution was submitted via the Congregation of Kindness.
If you have a big idea or a story to tell about how you’re contributing kindness in this world, we’d love to read it.
Submit your contribution here.
Voices of Unity: Poetry, Time & the Divine Anthology Celebrates Cultural and Spiritual Harmony Through Poetry
Sydney, Australia – May 2026
A new anthology, Voices of Unity: Poetry, Time & the Divine, has been published following a moving intercultural and interfaith poetry gathering hosted by The Rev. Bill Crews Foundation.
This anthology brings together voices from diverse spiritual and cultural traditions, including Druze, Indian, Kurdish, Mandaean and Tibetan communities. Through poetry, chant, song, sacred reflection and personal expression, the collection honours the deep human longing for unity, compassion and the Divine.
The anthology emerged from Voices of Unity: Poetry, Time & the Divine, a gathering created to offer communities a sacred and welcoming space to share their wisdom traditions through the universal language of poetry. Hosted within the spirit of Rev Bill Crews’ lifelong commitment to kindness, inclusion and dignity, the event invited participants to move beyond division and celebrate the beauty of cultural and spiritual diversity in Australia.
The collection includes original and traditional offerings, community reflections, photographs, acknowledgements and insights from the judging process. It also captures the warmth of the gathering itself – where poetry became a bridge between communities, and where voices from different traditions were received with equal reverence.
Rev. Bill Crews, whose work has long championed the dignity of all people, supported the gathering as part of The Rev. Bill Crews Foundation’s broader mission to build community, nurture belonging and bring people together across lines of culture, faith and circumstance.
Edited by Dr Anjalika Wijesurendra, it is both a record of a beautiful event and a living offering of unity – “This anthology honours the sacred gifts each community brought forward. It reflects the possibility of Australia as a place where diverse traditions can meet not in separation, but in shared reverence, friendship and hope.”
The gathering was supported by community leaders, participating poets and performers from the Sabian Mandaean community, Tibetan community, Indian community, Druze community, and the Kurdish community, the judges, volunteers and The Crews Café, whose vegetarian and vegan menu helped create an atmosphere of warmth, hospitality and conversation.
Voices of Unity: Poetry, Time & the Divine stands as a testament to the power of poetry to soften boundaries, deepen understanding and reveal the shared light within diverse traditions.
For media enquiries, interviews or further information, please contact:
Dr Anjalika Wijesurendra
Editor, Voices of Unity: Poetry, Time & the Divine
The Bill Crews Congregation of Kindness
Email: AnjalikaW@billcrews.org
Why We Must Never Forget
Hi Everyone,
My friend Gerry prepared and read this out during our church service on Sunday, 26th April 2026.
I asked if it was ok to share it with you. I thought it was a great contribution to our Congregation of Kindness.
I’d love your contributions too.
Why We Must Never Forget
It is almost 81 years since the war in Europe ended and, all but 10 days, I have lived through all of them so have had a life free from any of the dangers or sacrifices that come with war. I know there have been lots of wars elsewhere, but they were always elsewhere.
That’s 3 and possibly 4 generations that have never experienced not just war but the necessary sacrifices that touch everyone.
If we have no experience of war, can we really understand peace? I worry that peace has come to mean a life being able to enjoy all the benefits that have come with these 81 years. Not to mention the freedoms we take for granted.
There has never been so much wealth and prosperity in the world as today, even if it is not shared equitably. But, at the same time, there has never been so much tyranny, oppression and suffering around the world in my lifetime as today.
Last week, Bill asked why do we continue to have wars? Do we never learn?
I have no profound answer to that question, other than to ask if we just forget. Forget that the forces of darkness (I could say evil) have never gone away. What Conrad called the Heart of Darkness that kills unarmed protesters or those with different beliefs and women and children.
By accident or design, modern warfare has increasingly targeted the innocent. In addition, cyberwarfare and economic warfare are just other ways to create misery.
At some point we are going to have to ask ourselves, “what is peace?” Does it mean selling lots of stuff to them? Or needing their oil or critical minerals being able to buy really cheap clothing? And the rest we don’t want to know.
On Anzac Day we remember those who died for our country and fighting for what was right. But for the rest of the year, we really don’t want to know about those who returned but who still sacrificed much. So returned veterans are three times more likely to be homeless and close to double the rate of suicide.
A quote from Deitrich Bonhoffer, a German minister executed in the last days of the war for speaking out about the Nazis, “Silence in the face of evil is evil itself.”
A poem by Siegfried Sassoon, an English writer who fought in WWI before protesting against the scale of slaughter on the front.
At The Cenotaph
I saw the Prince of Darkness, with his Staff,
Standing bare headed by the Cenotaph:
Unostentatious and respectful, there
He stood and offered up the following prayer.
‘Make them forget, O Lord, what this Memorial
Means; their discredited ideas revive;
Breed new belief that War is purgatorial
Proof of the pride and power of being alive;
Men’s biologic urge to readjust
The Map of Europe, Lord of Hosts, increase;
Lift up their hearts in large destructive lust;
And crown their heads with blind vindictive Peace.’
The Prince of Darkness to the Cenotaph
Bowed. As he walked away, I heard him laugh.
If you have a big idea or a story to tell about how you’re contributing kindness in this world, we’d love to read it.
Submit your contribution here.